Update, and mental break.

"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
05/25/2020 at 22:17 • Filed to: Longbed 2020

So I cannot get that darned dimmer switch out, but I’m hoping the penetrating oil overnight will give me a second breath. I twisted the knob 6,000 times in hopes it would clean the contacts or something. I jiggled this, this n’that in hopes something would reconnect. Nope. However it may not matter now, see below...

In the meantime, I picked up a multimeter, which has made for a humiliating experience in the privacy of my own garage. I know nothing about electricity, currents, circuitry, wiring... Which I suppose is totally unacceptable for a man my age, but it’s true. So anyway, even after a detailed tutorial from my BIL, so far my conclusion is “shit’s broke, dawg.”

However, I did determine that the bulbs I pulled have uhhhh continuity? They should work? They have “positive Omega symbols?” They “contain ohmmmmms?”

So many random uncapped wires...

Perhaps more damning: I removed the wires going to the dimmer switch and touched them together. This works as both a test and a bypass... probably. Still no lights.

Later with my new multimeter, I test the connection between the two with the...

[reads notes]

Uhhh.. “DEEEE CEEEEE” ... “Twelve Veeeees...?” The reading was zero.

Dun-dun-dunnnnnnnnn...

Anywho, thanks for all the helpful replies earlier! I so how I just find a random cut somewhere in one of the two wires in question... I’ll let you know.

DISCUSSION (12)

This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja: > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
05/25/2020 at 22:22

You have checked the fuses, correct?

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja:
05/25/2020 at 22:25

Yessir

Sovande > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
05/25/2020 at 22:32

Did you swap in a new fuse anyway? I like to do that to make sure I have exhausted everything I know about electrical stuff.

Good luck!

RPM esq. > Sovande
05/25/2020 at 22:37

Same

DipodomysDeserti > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
05/25/2020 at 22:38

I taught “ electricity”, to preschoolers this year. I crammed them into a corner of my class, then had them run to the other side pretending to be electrons. That’s basically it. Humans have just come up with a lot of other ways to fuck with preschoolers, I mean electrons...

Roadkilled > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
05/25/2020 at 22:43

Are there additional hidden fuse panels? I had a vehicle from that era that had the fuse block under the hood, a fuse panel on the left side of the driver’s footwell and a third panel on the passenger side of the center console. I knew of two of them when I bought the car. An electrical issue left me confused until I eventually found the third panel. The main block had many lights grouped on one fuse. The others split things like dash lights to their own fuses.

If you need it, I can offer lots of other useless and ann oying advice on things you have already checked.

Spaceball-Two > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
05/25/2020 at 22:55

I’m with you. I hate anything electrical. I hate changing outlets in my house. Sound like you’re narrowing it down.

This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja: > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
05/25/2020 at 22:55

Ok, just double checking.

I’ve no idea how they configured the wiring in that, nor am I an electrician (though I do play the home game from time to time) but if we’re assuming they just sent 12v through the dimmer switch I have a few ideas.

As a test you can pull 12v somewhere else and apply it to one of those wires. If things light up then you’ll just need to run a new permanent power lead.

To do the test ideally you want to make sure you have a fuse on the wire in the event you short it to ground. Can be as simple as connecting a wire to the positive lead on the battery with an inline fuse attached, or even hacking the barrel connector off of an old cigarette lighter adapter if you happen to have one laying around that you can sacrifice as they usually have bulb fuses built in.

If this test proves successful you’ll want to run a new wire of the same gauge to the switch, and this wire will need to be appropriately fused. If it’s feasible you’ll want to run it to the fuse box where power should have been coming from to begin with, assuming it isn’t cooked. This may require pulling the fuse holders from the box to gain access to the screw terminals where you’d ideally want to attach the wire, but again I’m not sure how 80's Toyota’s were setup. (Be sure to disconnect the battery before servicing the fuse box!) If that proves too daunting or otherwise unposssible you can always run it straight to the battery, with an inline fuse, to get it reliably working again. Hacky as it may be.

Of course this all assumes they were sending 12v through that switch, which acted as a dimmer, and 12 or some v less than 12 was coming out the other end. They probably did set it up that way, but if this thing were any newer I probably wouldn’t go probing around with voltage without knowing for sure what I was applying voltage to. Lest you cook a module or something. Just for future reference, should the IS ever blow a bulb or something.

Edit: oh, and no more of those crap automotive crimp connectors. If you have to splice a wire pick up some heat shrink self solder connectors. Just push the wires in, hit them with a heat gun, and bam waterproof solder joint.

ClassicDatsunDebate > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
05/25/2020 at 23:00

Call it “juice”. It just feels better.

AestheticsInMotion > Sovande
05/25/2020 at 23:01

Lol. I needed that laugh

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
05/26/2020 at 01:24

An air gap has a lot of ohms, what you want is a very tiny number of them, like small enough that it’s probably not detectable. You want to complete a circuit.

To verify it’s the switch, check that power is going to the hot side (one probe on that wire, one to the body or a better ground). If it isn’t, the problem is upstream of the switch. If it’s hot (may need to turn on the ignition first, do that for the above test), jump from the hot side to the cold side of the switch with some wire or a screwdriver or a paper clip or something. If the dash lights up, you have isolated the problem to the switch. If it doesn’t, it could be that all the lights are in series, which means a single bad bulb could take them all out (improbable, but this is an ancient Toyota, so who knows?). Just work along logically to locate/isolate the issue.

I really should finish these before commenting...

Did you have the ignition on before testing those wires? Should the dash have been lit up? Like ignition on and lights in running lights position? If no power is coming in when it’s in that state, check fuses. Sometimes they’re inline and a car that old very well might have been modified by a past owner.

If I had more free time and our friendly neighborhood Rona was out of our hair , I’d either go visit or invite you over to help isolate it. It shouldn’t be difficult to track something like this down .

This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja: > This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja:
05/26/2020 at 09:11

(That may have all gone without saying. Or maybe I just shouldn’t have said it. I must have been half-asleep or distracted by family. It occurred to me after the fact that if you do happen to opt to run a new power lead and don’t choose to run it to the fuse panel instead opting for a direct connection, you would need to add a relay to the mix so the dash lights, you know, actually shut off once in a while. Slightly more advanced, but not difficult to rig. If you go that route, holla dawg, we’ll get you sorted.)